"The same week that Freedom House called Iran the world's worst Internet offender, the hacking group Anonymous has begun striking at the country. Officially set to begin on Sunday, some reports indicate the politically-inspired hacking has already commenced, with messages left on several of the websites previously defaced by Iran's government-supported "Cyber Army."

According to the group's press release, the attack officially begins Sunday, May 1 - a labor holiday."

Friday, April 29, 2011

There are some things that you can never 'un-see'. Add to that list a man in the clip at the bottom of the post who's jaw has been blown off and is apparently cognisant of his situation. His crime was openly expressing a desire for freedom, or paying respects to others who have been murdered by the Syrian regime.

Our silence is appalling. Non-action is not acceptable. That does not mean we need to start bombing as there are many tools in our kit, but this silence is tantamount to acceptance.

"When William F. Buckley met Saul Alinsky, one of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s biggest influences. Unfortunately, only five minutes of this December 1967 edition of Buckley’s seminal Firing Line program is online the above clip, but you can read a transcript of the entire interview at the Hoover Institute, or buy a DVD of the program for ten bucks from Amazon."

"The rival Palestinian Hamas and Fatah groups reached a preliminary agreement to end their almost four-year divide, form a unity government and hold elections.

Egypt, which acted as mediator during the secret talks, will host a meeting of Palestinian factions next week for a formal signing ceremony, Fatah negotiator Azzam al-Ahmad said....Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a unity agreement would put an end to negotiations and said the Palestinian Authority “must choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas.” President Shimon Peres said it would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and “sabotage any chance for peace.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said the agreement “crosses a red line” and suggested the government withhold tax revenue it transfers to the Palestinian Authority and rescind travel permits for its officials. A clause providing for the release of Hamas prisoners from Palestinian jails “will flood the West Bank with armed terrorists,” Liberman told Army Radio today. “The army will have to act accordingly.”"

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Perhaps slightly more accurately, the reporter was punished for the way in which she reported. The offense, using a video camera instead of just taking notes. For that she was apparently banned from the press pool and then then they tried to cover the whole incident up. Most transparent administration ever...

"White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news.

The Chronicle's Carla Marinucci - who, like many contemporary reporters, has a phone with video capabilities on her at all times - pulled out a small video camera last week and shot some protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.

She was part of a "print pool" - a limited number of journalists at an event who represent their bigger hoard colleagues - which White House press officials still refer to quaintly as "pen and pad" reporting....So what's up with the White House? We can't say because neither Press Secretary Jay Carney nor anyone from his staff would speak on the record.

Other sources confirmed that Carla was vanquished, including Chronicle editor Ward Bushee, who said he was "informed that Carla was removed as a pool reporter." Which shouldn't be a secret in any case because it's a fact that affects the newsgathering of our largest regional paper (and sfgate)and how local citizens get their information.

What's worse: more than a few journalists familiar with this story are aware of some implied threats from the White House of additional and wider punishment if Carla's spanking became public. Really? That's a heavy hand usually reserved for places other than the land of the free."

This happened in England. It is stories like this that really make you appreciate first amendment rights. Politicization in this country should be highlighting this because in comparison it could make someone who is afraid an island might "tip over" look smart by comparison. Well, maybe not quite that far...

"A pub singer has been arrested on suspicion of racism for singing the classic chart hit Kung Fu Fighting.

The song, performed by Simon Ledger, 34, is said to have offended two Chinese people as they walked past the bar where he was singing....But after one of the passers-by reported his routine on Sunday afternoon, Mr Ledger was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated harassment....Officers later called Mr Ledger while he was eating in a Chinese restaurant to arrange a meeting.

The singer assumed it was a prank – but he was later arrested and is still under investigation."

"Superman announces that he is going to give up his U.S. citizenship. Despite very literally being an alien immigrant, Superman has long been seen as a patriotic symbol of "truth, justice, and the American way," from his embrace of traditional American ideals to the iconic red and blue of his costume. What it means to stand for the "American way" is an increasingly complicated thing, however, both in the real world and in superhero comics, whose storylines have increasingly seemed to mirror current events and deal with moral and political complexities rather than simple black and white morality.

The key scene takes place in "The Incident," a short story in Action Comics #900 written by David S. Goyer with art by Miguel Sepulveda. In it, Superman consults with the President's national security advisor, who is incensed that Superman appeared in Tehran to non-violently support the protesters demonstrating against the Iranian regime, no doubt an analogue for the recent real-life protests in the Middle East. However, since Superman is viewed as an American icon in the DC Universe as well as our own, the Iranian government has construed his actions as the will of the American President, and indeed, an act of war."

"Wearing a grey suit and sitting at a podium in a conference room at the Fed's C Street Annex Building, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made history this afternoon, talking to the media for the first time in a post-FOMC meeting briefing. No other Fed chairman in the 98-year history of the nation's central bank has done this.

Bernanke offered a stoic presence in a room filled with more than 50 reporters and dozens of cameras, confidently fielding more than 18 questions during the hour-long news conference."

"House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly last night to strip police officers, teachers, and other municipal employees of most of their rights to bargain over health care, saying the change would save millions of dollars for financially strapped cities and towns.

The 111-to-42 vote followed tougher measures to broadly eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees in Ohio, Wisconsin, and other states. But unlike those efforts, the push in Massachusetts was led by Democrats who have traditionally stood with labor to oppose any reduction in workers’ rights.

Unions fought hard to stop the bill, launching a radio ad that assailed the plan and warning legislators that if they voted for the measure, they could lose their union backing in the next election. After the vote, labor leaders accused House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and other Democrats of turning their backs on public employees."

"Google Calendar sync started supporting the 32-bit version of Outlook 2010 back in August. Outlook sync has continued to be a top feature request, which is why we’ve continued to improve upon it and are pleased to announce that Calendar Sync now supports the 64-bit version too."

"A government attempt to oust a longtime drug-company chief executive over his company's marketing violations is raising alarms in that industry and beyond about a potential expansion of federal involvement in the business world.

The Department of Health and Human Services this month notified Howard Solomon of Forest Laboratories Inc. that it intends to exclude him from doing business with the federal government. This, in turn, could prevent Forest from selling its drugs to Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Administration. If the government implements its ban, Forest would have to dump Mr. Solomon, now 83 years old, in order to protect its corporate revenue. No drug company, large or small, can afford to lose out on sales to the federal government, a major customer.

The campaign against drug-company CEOs is part of a larger Obama administration effort to pursue individual executives blamed for wrongdoing rather than simply punishing companies. The government has tried to prosecute Wall Street executives in connection with the 2008 financial crisis, but with limited success."

No reliable word on what its purpose was or how much damage it did, but the safe bet would be Iran's nuclear facility. The second attack (Stuxnet being the first) means that Iran did not plug the holes that let Stuxnet slip in. It is cleaner then a physical strike, and is hopefully even more effective.

"Iran’s nuclear program has been hit by a new ‘cyber attack’, the country claims.

As Reuters reports, Iran says that it has identified a new hostile worm called ‘Stars’. The attack follows Stuxnet, a worm that mysteriously appeared around the world last year before it emerged that it appeared to be specifically designed as a way of stalling Iran’s nuclear program by interfering with uranium enrichment technology...There’s no word as to whether the new Stars worm has targeted Iran’s nuclear problem or other parts of the regime. Iran’s commander of civil defense, Gholamreza Jalali told the country’s Mehr news agency ”The virus is congruous and harmonious with the (computer) system and in the initial phase it does minor damage and might be mistaken for some executive files of government organisations.”"

"We’re always looking for ways to make Gmail faster. One of the most common delays happens after you hit that “Send” button, when you’re waiting patiently for a couple seconds for Gmail to send your message. If you send a lot of email, that can add up to a lot of lost time.

To help give you that time back, there’s a new feature in Gmail Labs called Background Send. Once you turn it on from the Labs tab in Settings, you can get on with what you’re doing while Gmail quietly sends off your mail in the background. You can keep reading your inbox, compose new messages, chat with people — all the things you’d usually do. You can even send more than one message in the background at the same time."

This is a tragedy, but it is not clear that this is a terrorist attack. So far it appears to be more a case of serious over reaction on the part of the PA police; an almost if not criminal act, but not necessarily terrorism.

"Today it was the PA police forces themselves that did the shooting, murdering one Israeli and wounding four others who had gone to pray at Joseph's tomb on the morning before the last day of Passover. The one murder victim (so far) has been identified as 24-year-old Ben Yosef Livnat, a nephew of Likud Minister Limor Livnat and the father of four children, so the celebrations in the territory controlled by the PA must be grand indeed. Palestinian Arabs proceeded to desecrate Joseph's tomb and attack Livnat's funeral procession. I should add that in Haaretz, one spokesman for the Israelis on the West Bank makes the point linking PA incitement with the Fogel murders in connection with toda's events.

Arutz Sheva adds this piquant detail. The PA police forces continued to fire at the cars of the Jews observing Passover as they fled from the site. Were the Palestinian security forces among those trained by General Dayton and the United States? Perhaps some American reporter will care to ferret out the facts.

Israel is an island of civilization in a sea of barbarians and savages of varying motivations mostly related to Islam. The problem is not Jews in this Jerusalem neighborhood or that part of the West Bank, but rather the existence of the national home of the Jewish people. The most charitable interpretation of the Obama administration's actions is that it is oblivious to this obvious truth, though the charitable interpretation is becoming impossible to sustain."

"Netanyahu called the shooting a “criminal act against Jewish worshippers on their way to prayer.” The army said in an e-mail the Israelis had failed to inform soldiers of their intention to enter Palestinian-controlled territory as required by law. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that “a slip-up in security coordination can’t justify an incident like this.”...The casualty of today’s shooting was the nephew of Israeli Minister of Culture and Sport Limor Livnat, said Or Doron, a ministry spokeswoman.

Livnat said a Palestinian gunman masquerading as a policeman killed her nephew, according to the daily Haaretz. An army spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a preliminary investigation found that the Israelis had refused to stop at a Palestinian checkpoint at an entrance to Joseph’s Tomb."

"In 2009 Boeing announced plans to build a new plant to meet demand for its new 787 Dreamliner. Though its union contract didn’t require it, Boeing executives negotiated with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers to build the plane at its existing plant in Washington state. The talks broke down because the union wanted, among other things, a seat on Boeing’s board and a promise that Boeing would build all future airplanes in Puget Sound.

So Boeing management did what it judged to be best for its shareholders and customers and looked elsewhere. In October 2009, the company settled on South Carolina, which, like the 21 other right-to-work states, has friendlier labor laws than Washington. As Boeing chief Jim McNerney noted on a conference call at the time, the company couldn’t have “strikes happening every three to four years.” The union has shut down Boeing’s commercial aircraft production line four times since 1989, and a 58-day strike in 2008 cost the company $1.8 billion.

This reasonable business decision created more than 1,000 jobs and has brought around $2 billion of investment to South Carolina. The aerospace workers in Puget Sound remain among the best paid in America, but the union nonetheless asked the NLRB to stop Boeing’s plans before the company starts to assemble planes in North Charleston this July.

The NLRB obliged with its complaint yesterday asking an administrative law judge to stop Boeing’s South Carolina production because its executives had cited the risk of strikes as a reason for the move. Boeing acted out of “anti-union animus,” says the complaint by acting general counsel Lafe Solomon, and its decision to move had the effect of “discouraging membership in a labor organization” and thus violates federal law."

"Ah, that must be the Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Law, or one of the Fairness Laws, or something, right? The WSJ isn’t sure what law the NLRB is talking about, either. Not only do businesses routinely relocate to find the most advantageous environment possible, states and cities compete for that business by calculating their business climate. If this has escaped the notice of the NLRB, perhaps they should get out more."

"Today we’re making a small change that makes it easier to handle long label names: you can now add and edit label names up to 225 characters. The old limit was 40 characters, which wasn’t enough for some people who had switched from Outlook or accessed Gmail through IMAP.

Label names can get really long, especially when you use Nested Labels. When that happens, Gmail will shorten them if necessary to avoid cluttering your view."

The percentage of the total population in workforce is at historic lows as well, the lowest since woman started seriously entering joining their male compatriots in the office. As discouraging as the unemployment numbers are, they may be a the rose tinted glasses view of the American job market.

"Passover recalls the bondage and suffering of Jews in Egypt and the miracle of the Exodus, but U.S. President Barack Obama says its message is reflected in Muslim uprisings.

In his annual message, prior to his third straight participation in the Passover Seder, President Obama stated, “The story of Passover…instructs each generation to remember its past, while appreciating the beauty of freedom and the responsibility it entails. This year that ancient instruction is reflected in the daily headlines as we see modern stories of social transformation and liberation unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Having constructed a link between the Arab uprisings and Chosen People's experiencing the miracles of the Creator that led them out of Egypt and towards the receiving of the Ten Commandments, the President concluded, "As Jewish families gather for this joyous celebration of freedom, let us all be thankful for the gifts that have been bestowed upon us, and let us work to alleviate the suffering, poverty, injustice, and hunger of those who are not yet free.”"

"University of Pittsburgh researchers have assembled a key piece of tech that will help enable a future generation of extremely powerful quantum computers as well as advanced electronic materials and better computer memories. Their single-electron transistor is the first of its kind made entirely from oxide-based materials, an important aspect that allows it to work as a solid-state memory.

SketchSET--or sketch-based single-electron transistor--contains a tiny 1.5-nanometer-wide island at its core that operates with just one or two electrons at a time. The ability to work at such small scales makes it ideal for several advanced computing applications, like quantum processors that would be orders of magnitude more powerful than existing supercomputers....But the subatomic possibilities don’t end there. That tiny central island at the heart of the technology could also be used as an artificial atom, the researchers say. These in turn could be used to develop new classes of electronic materials, like superconductors with exotic properties not see in natural materials."

That is the headline across the Drudge Report with a rare flash talking about this book which has shot to number one on Amazon.

What will the book reveal? We will have to wait a bit, but I can hazard a guess based on the facts.

I do think that Obama was born in Hawaii. The newspaper announcements, the short form that has been released, and the Clinton research team (not to mention everyone who had an interest in proving Obama ineligible to run) and the few reputable journalist organizations that remain would have uncovered something.

With that out of the way, the next question that must be asked is why Obama has refused to release his long form birth certificate. There are two main options. The first is as a trap for his critics that his allies and the media can use to attack his opponents. The second is there is something written on it that Obama does not want people to know. The two top contenders for that hidden information is what religion it says and if he ever legally changed his name.

My inclination is towards the second option; and further to the second piece of information. That is based on Hawaii Neil Abercrombie (D) not able to find the birth certificate in the records, and then abruptly changing his mind and pledge about publishing it (it should be noted that the action would have been against the law, but that is something he at should have known before). The fact that he could not find it does not mean that it does not exist. It means that the paper record was likely filed under the name Obama legally changed to; and likely never legally changed back.

Such a revelation would mean that Obama lied to the American people. Remember that with Clinton it was not the affair that got him impeached, it was the lie about it. That lie was under oath and Obama does not have a similar risk. That is to say that if Obama did lie, it was not under oath and therefor not an impeachable offense. The same would be true if it was revealed that he was listed as Muslim at birth. I believe Obama is a Christian. It does not make much sense to criticize someone for sitting in a church with an anti-American pastor and then decry him as a 'secret Muslim'. People can not control what they are born into either. People do however choose if they are going to lie about it.

Basically, the biggest problem from the book Obama may face is being caught in a lie or two; not having his eligibility questioned.

"This year's high stakes publishing project quietly went to press this week, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

After years of research and digging by the nation's top private investigators, here it comes:

"WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President."

MORE

The street date is a LONG month away, and author Jerome Corsi, the man who torpedoed John Kerry's presidential dreams with SWIFT BOAT, has gone underground and is holding his new findings thisclose.

"It's utterly devastating," reveals a source close to the publisher. "Obama may learn things he didn't even know about himself!""

I had a discussion with a few of my co-workers about what the consequences would be if it turned out Obama was not born in the United States and there was conclusive proof to that effect. While the discussion started out about if certain laws and policies would automatically be undone, it turned into one on if being born in the United States is actually a requirement. The phrase 'natural born' may not end up meaning born in the United States, if such a case could ever effectively be brought. There are some other examples of people running for president without being born in the States that were not disqualified on that basis; perhaps the most well known being Obama's opponent (McCain). Such a discussion is best saved for a subsequent post.

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame, has sparked the newest round of comments on the drinking age in his recent Wall Street Journal article. The issue seems to come up in waves with someone notable commenting on the ludicrousy of the drinking age being set at 21. That is followed by others commenting in agreement, but then nothing ever happens. It is subsequently dropped until the next time someone brings it up.

I fully support lowering the drinking age back to 18. If you are old enough to fight and die for our country and our freedom, you are old enough to enjoy a beer. The question then becomes how to go about making that so. The states could do so individually if they were willing to forgo 10% of their federal highway funding. I would be curious to know what sort of additional state tax revenue would be generated from the move compared to how much money they would no longer be getting from the Federal government.

There is another option; that of civil disobedience. Imagine case after case going through the court system of a bartender/bar getting fined or otherwise penalized for serving a wounded war veteran a drink. Imagine case after case going through the court system of wounded war heroes getting penalized for trying to enjoy a beer in a bar with their fellow veterans. How many of these cases would have to be brought to public attention before there was a general call among the populace for a change in the law?

If you are asking what you can do beyond pressing your representative to help a change of law around; well, I am not advising that you specifically break the law. That said, if I heard that a bar in my area was serving veterans even if they 'forgot' their ID, my inclination would be to go out of my way to at least patron said bar if not by a round.

"The "old enough to fight, old enough to drink" argument has force. In fact, 18-year-olds in America are old enough to do pretty much everything except drink. Along with joining the military, 18-year-olds can vote, marry, sign contracts, and even take on a crippling lifetime burden of student loan debt in pursuit of an education that may never land them a job. Yet we face the absurd phenomenon of colleges encouraging students to go into six-figure debt—which can't be discharged in bankruptcy—but forbidding them to drink on campus because they're deemed insufficiently mature to appreciate the risks....Safety is the excuse, but what is really going on here is something more like prohibition. A nation that cares about freedom—and that has already learned that prohibition was a failure—should know better. As Atlantic Monthly columnist Megan McArdle writes, "A drinking age of 21 is an embarrassment to a supposedly liberty-loving nation. If you are old enough to enlist, and old enough to vote, you are old enough to swill cheap beer in the company of your peers."

On Jan. 21, 2009, I suggested in these pages that President Obama might wish to signal a new approach by supporting a return to state freedom in setting drinking ages. He hasn't, of course. Perhaps he sees the drinking age as a Republican problem—which, to be fair, it is."

When an interviewer asks anyone a question (especially if that person is the president of the United States) they should let them answer them. That said, there is a legitimate concern of a sort of 'interviewee filibuster' where the person tries to take up all the time with unnecessarily long winded answers to prevent further difficult questions.

"Standard & Poor’s issued a stark warning to Washington on Monday, cutting its outlook on US sovereign debt for the first time and throwing more fuel on the raging debate over America’s swollen deficits.

The agency kept America’s credit rating at triple A but for the first time since it started rating US debt 70 years ago, cut its outlook from “stable” to “negative”. A negative outlook means there is a one-third chance of a downgrade in the next two years."

"Now when you use the Gmail mobile web app, you’ll have a small window of opportunity to undo four key actions: archive, delete, add or remove a label, or move a message/conversation.

When you take one of these actions, Gmail displays a yellow bar that recaps what you just did and allows you to undo it:

This bar stays in position even if you move to another screen (e.g. moving to ‘Menu’ from ‘Inbox’). If you don’t happen to catch your mistake in time, not to worry: all four actions can still be undone through other means (e.g. you can move a message from Trash back into your Inbox)."

"In a statement issued Friday night, President Obama took issue with some provisions in the budget bill – and in one case simply says he will not abide by it....One rider – Section 2262 -- de-funds certain White House adviser positions – or “czars.” The president in his signing statement declares that he will not abide by it.

“The President has well-established authority to supervise and oversee the executive branch, and to obtain advice in furtherance of this supervisory authority,” he wrote. “The President also has the prerogative to obtain advice that will assist him in carrying out his constitutional responsibilities, and do so not only from executive branch officials and employees outside the White House, but also from advisers within it. Legislative efforts that significantly impede the President's ability to exercise his supervisory and coordinating authorities or to obtain the views of the appropriate senior advisers violate the separation of powers by undermining the President's ability to exercise his constitutional responsibilities and take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

Therefore, the president wrote, “the executive branch will construe section 2262 not to abrogate these Presidential prerogatives.”"

"Bowing to pressure from a popular uprising, Syria’s president promised Saturday to end nearly 50 years of emergency rule next week but coupled his concession with a stern warning - that further unrest will be considered sabotage.

The protest movement has been steadily growing over the past four weeks, posing a serious challenge to the 40-year ruling dynasty of President Bashar Assad and his father before him. A British-trained eye doctor who inherited power 11 years ago, Assad acknowledged Saturday that Syrians have legitimate grievances.

But he warned there will no longer be “an excuse” for organizing protests once Syria lifts emergency rule and implements a spate of reforms, which he said will include a new law allowing the formation of political parties."

"A 75-year-old woman was recently arrested by the Georgian police after she single-handedly cut off Internet connections in Georgia and neighbouring Armenia.

AFP reports that the pensioner was digging for scrap metal with the intention of stealing it when she stumbled upon a fibre-optic cable which runs through Georgia to Armenia, forcing thousands of Internet users in both countries to lose Internet connection for several hours. Georgian Railway Telecom, the company that owns the cable, said that the latest damage was serious, causing 90 percent of private and corporate Internet users in Armenia to lose access for nearly 12 hours while also hitting Georgian Internet service providers."

'Tax Expenditure' is a bit of double speak which translates to 'tax increases'. It also lets you know exactly who Obama thinks owns your wages. The logic behind the term Tax Expenditure is as follows; the government is entitled to 100% of the money you earn making a living, any money they let you keep is money that was rightfully theirs, hence the money you keep is money the government is giving to you or is an expenditure. Lessening that 'expenditure' means keeping more of what you earn in the form of increased taxes.

Conservatives and Libertarians take the opposite view. You are entitled to the money you earn. Taxes are a person being forced to give some of their money to the government. Taking less taxes is in no way generous because the government is not entitled to it.

As with people calling themselves 'progressives' instead of 'Liberal', hopefully the use of 'Tax Expenditure' will make people cringe even more than talking about tax increases. While the effect may be the same, it is the element of deceit along with what it reveals about the person beliefs that will put people off.

"Obama is a born again deficit cutter. He wants, according to his speech at George Washington University this week, to slim down nation's deficit by a whopping four trillion dollars in the next twelve years. To achieve this miraculous goal he has a top secret weapon. It is called the "tax expenditure."

Now tax expenditures are not new, they have been around for many years, only we knew them by a different name. The old- fashioned name which is heretofore banned from the lexicon is: tax increase.

But everyone knows tax increases are bad, so Obama and his team must be thinking that if they changed the name the voters wouldn't notice."

It was almost a strictly partisan vote, with a handful of Republicans joining the Democrats voting no. The budget is unlikely to pass in the Senate, nor be signed off on by Obama, so we could be heading toward another shutdown next year.

"The House on Friday approved a fiscal year 2012 budget resolution from Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that seeks to drastically limit government spending next year and in years to follow.

But the vote on the measure — which imposes $5.8 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade — came after a clear sign that at least half of the Republican Caucus supports even tougher spending cuts.

The final tally was 235-193, with four Republicans opposing it. They were Reps. Ron Paul (Texas), Denny Rehberg (Mont.), Walter Jones (N.C.) and David McKinley (W.Va.)."

Thursday, April 14, 2011

"I thought the vote would be epically close. Instead it was a snooze — with one caveat: 59 Republicans voted no, which would have been enough to kill it had Democrats united against it in order to make life hard for Boehner. Instead, thanks in part to Steny Hoyer, 81 of them voted yes (versus 108 who voted no, including Pelosi). I’m mighty curious to know what their calculus was. Were they afraid Obama would look bad if they torpedoed a deal he signed off on? Or are there still enough Democrats left in purplish districts that they wanted to bank some budget-cutting cred ahead of next year’s elections?"

"Walter Breuning's earliest memories stretched back 111 years, before home entertainment came with a twist of the radio dial. They were of his grandfather's tales of killing Southerners in the Civil War.

Breuning was 3 and horrified: "I thought that was a hell of a thing to say."

But the stories stuck, becoming the first building blocks into what would develop into a deceptively simple philosophy that Breuning, the world's oldest man at 114 before he died Thursday, credited to his longevity....He was the oldest man in the world and the second-oldest person, according to the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group. Besse Cooper of Monroe, Ga. - born 26 days earlier - is the world's oldest person."

Sleep well fellow citizens, the country is safe from small children blowing up planes by hiding explosives in their crotch. In all seriousness though, you can not give a blanket exemption to a type of person to screen or they will be used to smuggle the deadly contraband. That said, I refuse to accept the best way to deal with the situation is to perform what in any other situation would be considered child molestation.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

At least that is what is was billed as. The speech seemed lite on details, but pretty heavy with the partisan attacks. We will have to see a more flushed out written plan before knowing exactly what the effects are likely to be.

Yes, that is a real headline from a real story. This is foolish on a number of different levels. Perhaps the first, and it is hard to see how this was overlooked by the self proclaimed environmentalists, is intentional introducing a foreign species into a new environment. It tends not to end so well; think rabbits in Australia. There is also the pointlessness of the move by the people's own admission.

"Lord Chris Smith, Chairman of the Environment Agency, said British species have to be protected from climate change.

"In addition to the anticipated warming of lakes and rivers, we may also see an increase in the occurrence of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and heatwaves.

"All of these could have an impact on much of the native wildlife in England, especially aquatic species such as the rare and specialised vendace, so we are taking action now to conserve the existing populations.""

When they say "anticipated warming / may also / could have", what they mean is it 'has not' and 'will not necessarily' In other words they admit that the fish are not in any increased danger and may never actually be.

Anthony Watts leads off with "This is just….just…ah heck I can’t even begin to describe it. The stupid, it burns." He also has the screen shot in case they decide to change it (you should really head over to see the headline with the picture of the Llamas) along with pulling a few of the comments from their post.

"“Don’t forget Bob” and “Got the wrong Bob?” are two Gmail Labs features that help prevent you from making two common mistakes: forgetting to include someone on an email, and sending a message to the wrong person with a similar name to the person you meant to email — like emailing Bob (your boss) instead of Bob (your friend).

We’ve received quite a bit of positive feedback from people who avoided some embarrassing situations thanks to these features. And today, we’re excited to graduate them from Gmail Labs and start turning them on for everyone"

"On April 13th, 2006 we released Google Calendar to the world. What started as an experimental project by several Googlers has grown to become a service that millions of people rely on every day. From photography studios to schools to airlines to supermarkets, we discover new ways people are using Calendar all the time.

A birthday wouldn’t be a birthday without a little present, so today we’re happy to announce our latest tiny addition: the up-to-date favicon. When you look at the Google Calendar icon at the top of your browser window, it will no longer always display “31” but will instead change to reflect the current day of the month. Today’s date is now always a short glance away."

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

"Wondering what the trip was like for Yuri Gagarin, who became the first man in space exactly 50 years ago? Look no further than YouTube.

On April 12, 1961, the Russian cosmonaut became the first person in space, ushering in the era of human spaceflight. The rocket carrying Gagarin's Vostok 1 spacecraft blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Soviet Union, reaching unprecedented speeds for human travel at the time before it broke free of the Earth's gravitational pull and entered orbit around the planet, circling once before re-entering the atmosphere and landing back on Soviet soil."

Monday, April 11, 2011

In case you have not been paying attention to politics in the Ivory Coast, the oversimplified story is as follows; Gbagbo (a Christian) was the president, he lost to Ouattara (a Muslim) in the last election, but has refused to relinquish power using the excuse that he fear that Muslims would massacre the Christians.

Obama made a speech supporting Ouattara, last month.

Video embedded below.

Gbagbo refused to step down. The French went in and removed Gbagbo by force. Just to recap; the US made an unheeded speech, and the French took action. Once again the French are taking the lead while the United States sits on the sideline.

"Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo was arrested on Monday after French armoured vehicles closed in on the compound where the self-proclaimed president had been holed up in a bunker.

A column of more than 30 French armoured vehicles moved in on Gbagbo's residence in Abidjan after helicopter gunships attacked the compound overnight in bid to end a months-long political standoff that had descended into civil war.

Gbagbo refused to step down when Alassane Ouattara won last November's presidential election, according to results certified by the United Nations, reigniting a civil war that has claimed more than a thousand lives and uprooted a million people.

"Yes, he has been arrested," Affoussy Bamba, a spokeswoman for Ouattara, told Reuters.

Gbagbo's spokesman in Ivory Coast, Ahoua Don Mello, told Reuters: "President Laurent Gbagbo came out of his bunker and surrendered to the French without offering resistance."

French officials said Gbagbo had been arrested by Ouattara's forces backed by the United Nations and the French military."

Without debating which side was right here, would it have been conceivable before Obama took power that the United States would be playing such a passive role in world affairs?

"The Japanese government's nuclear safety agency has decided to raise the crisis level of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident from 5 to 7, the worst on the international scale.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency made the decision on Monday. It says the damaged facilities have been releasing a massive amount of radioactive substances, which are posing a threat to human health and the environment over a wide area.

The agency used the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, or INES, to gauge the level. The scale was designed by an international group of experts to indicate the significance of nuclear events with ratings of 0 to 7."

The other day when I bought breakfast, the cashier handed me a Canadian coin as part of the change owed. Though it does not happen often, I have received Canadian coins as change before. This time was different. It used to be that when a Canadian coin was handed to me I would see it as a novelty, but a financial loss; a small loss but a loss none the less. This time, I saw it as both a novelty and a gain.

The truth is the reciprocal of what the title suggests. American change (coins) with the rest of the currency is being devalued. We are getting to the point, if we have not already, where you can not trust the change in your pocket to be store of value even over the relative short term. The change that you can believe in become foreign coins.

Then again, commodity prices are going through the roof. It could be that people no longer believe in foreign change either.

"Arab League chief Amr Mussa said on Sunday the organisation will ask the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Gaza, which Israel has pounded with air strikes in response to rocket fire.

Mussa told an emergency meeting of Arab League ambassadors that "the Arab bloc in the United Nations has been directed to ask for the convention of the Security Council to stop the Israeli aggression on Gaza and impose a no-fly zone.""

Someone should ask him what has changed so substantially in the last two months since he presented his 2012 Budget. The Republicans have successfully changed the debate from if to cut to how much to cut; good.

"Much will be revealed at midweek, when the House and Senate are expected to vote on a budget for the remainder of this fiscal year and Obama reveals his plan to reduce the deficit, in part by scaling back programs for seniors and the poor. Across the dial on Sunday, messengers from both parties framed the series of spending fights as debates over cuts -- a thematic victory for House Republicans swept to power by a populist mandate for smaller, more austere government.

"We've had to bring this president kicking and screaming to the table to cut spending," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., on "Fox News Sunday."

Presidential adviser David Plouffe said Obama has long been committed to finding ways for the nation to spend within its means. He confirmed that the president would unveil more specifics for deficit reduction with a speech Wednesday that would reveal plans to reduce the government's chief health programs for seniors and the poor."

"Saudi Arabia is currently working on a skyscraper that will be twice the size of the current record holder, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa (here’s the view from the top and what happens when lightning strikes that one). At 1 mile (1,600 m; 5,280 ft) tall, the Saudi development has a projected cost of $30bn. A city with a capacity of 80,000 people will be constructed around the tower, extending over an area of 23 million square metres.

Permission to build this beast of a building has been granted and construction work is under way."

Saturday, April 9, 2011

It used to be that defenders of Hamas could try to argue that they did not intentionally target civilians. The argument was that since the weapons Hamas has are so inaccurate, they do not have a choice by to target dense population centers. It furthered that it was just coincidence that the timing of those attacks just happened to correlate when school was just about to be in session or just letting out.

Of course the first option is to not shoot at Israel at all. The second option is to target military bases. It also does not explain why the gunman and suicide bombers keep attacking the civilians. It was an argument that never stood up to scrutiny, but one that could be attempted with a good poker face.

No more; Hamas used a laser guided weapon to attack a school bus which moments before had been filled with school children. What are they going to say now; Hamas accidentally fired a guided missile at a school bus and accidentally kept the bus 'painted' by the laser until it impacted?

There is no arguing with the fact that Hamas intentionally targeted Israeli civilians. I would wait for the United Nations and the rest of the international community to condemn this war crime, but I have things to do in the next few decades.

"It might have been easy to miss this detail in the report of the Hamas attack on an Israeli school bus on 7 April, in which a 13-year-old boy and the bus driver were injured (the boy severely). Hamas used a state-of-the-art Russian-design antitank missile, the 9M133 Kornet (NATO designation AT-14 SPRIGGAN), to attack the bus. Israeli officials confirmed that the hit on the school bus was achieved using laser guidance, and that the missile was launched from two miles away.

The account of the attack indicates that the bus was stopped (and had just offloaded most of its 50 schoolchildren, which was why more of them weren’t injured). So Hamas wasn’t attempting to hit a moving target. But the ability to accurately target a bus from a distance of two miles, with an effective modern weapon, is a game-changer in the Hamas campaign to target civilians."